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consciousness raising aspect is, in fact, a lie and is therefore a
bomb-the-village-to-save-the-village ideology, which is something
we cannot accept. Even for buffoons like us in MD intelligence is
always negative, critical, so it is politically vital that our first reaction
to pro-revolutionary manifestations is one of cynicism. Praise and
affirmation of the pro-revolutionary milieu is the greatest sin of the
pro-revolutionary; it is not our job to affirm anything.

One defensive definition of a revolutionary consciousness we have
recently encountered is 'a definition or a tendency to action on the
part of the 'working class' (meaning: consciousness arises within
the workers in their daily struggles). We agree with the sentiments
of this 'definition' but we do not call it consciousness - for us
consciousness also includes a concept of overcoming present
conditions, of having a map of where everything is going to end up,
it therefore describes a position of objective authority which we do
not think is possible without a lapse into ideology - we do not think
the proletariat can possess consciousness until capitalism is
finished, otherwise it becomes reified and establishes specific rules
of behavior where certain interests are surreptitiously maintained
in present conditions, the stability of which become the end of
those who claim to desire their overthrow.

Consciousness, or overcoming the present situation with a
'strategy' or an intent to reorganize society as communism, must
come at some second stage of revolution, after the conflagration,
and from new material conditions. We said we agreed totally with
the definition above but that we do not call it 'consciousness', we
prefer the term 'interest'. In our scheme the working class act out
of solidarity in opposition to capital because they must defend their
interest, it is possible that the working class will never escape
'trade union' consciousness (ie. being selfish and without
tranformative vision), that is, they will never stop seeking to
defend their interest, never get past wanting more pieces of pie.
This is fine by us, it is possible that the working class could drive
capitalism into collapse and effect their own erasure and never get
beyond a bodily, single-minded pursuit of their own selfish interest.
So long as the proletariat's demands stay within 'economic' terms,
that is, so long as they remain impervious to political temptation
then so long do they stay on course for naked conflict with the